Danville Mayor Candidate Steve Nichols Answers Community Questionnaire

These questions were created by Danville community members during the Democracy in Danville event on March 4^th at the Danville Public Library.

1. What are your short term and long term strategic plans for Danville?

In the short term, our focus must be in three areas. The first is to reconnect with the citizens of Danville. The focus of city government the past few years has been on itself; the pensions, the job descriptions, the benefit packages. Government is created to serve the people not the other way around. The second short-term plan needs to be curbing the epidemic of violence in our community. We need to start by adding three police officers as recommended by Acting Mayor Williams and forming a Problem Orientated Police unit. This unit will be assigned to problem areas in the city. This is only a start. All employees of the city must become more engaged, and I will make sure that they get out of the office more and into the community that they serve. We need to select a Police Chief that not only can build morale but also provide the necessary leadership and training to deal with our current challenges. The selection committee must contain members from the entire spectrum of our city if we are to achieve the necessary buy-in from the community. The third short-term goal is to evaluate our financial situation from top to bottom. We need a one-year freeze on tax and fee increases and a thorough review in the public eye of all expenses. Our long-term plan should be to begin a strategic planning process to cover all aspects of the city government, and again that process must include community members from all segments of our city.

2. Sell someone in 3 minutes why they should live in (or come back to) Danville.

Danville is a great place to live. We have a thriving arts community with a symphony orchestra, municipal band, the Danville Art League and many performing and theatrical groups. Through Summer Sounds downtown, the Lincoln Park Theater Company, and the Municipal Band, our citizens have free access to the arts. We have great parks in the city and in the county. We have rivers to canoe on and fish in and a beautiful lake for boating as well as a developing downtown riverfront area. We have a long tradition of volunteerism; an example this month is the NJCAA basketball tournament and this summer, Balloons Over Vermilion. Nobody puts on an event better than Danville. We also have a wide variety of churches and faith-based organizations. Our housing is affordable. Our people are friendly. There are skilled and unskilled jobs available, as well as a community college to help you gain any skills you lack. I love Danville and you will too.

3. How will you regularly engage your community? How will you keep lines of communication open?

I am going to spend most of my time out in the community. I will work beside the city employees to solicit their feedback, I’ve found that most good ideas for improvement come from the people actually doing the work. I am taking the government out to the public. We will conduct four city council meetings a year in the various sections of town, beginning with the eastern part of town. This will foster more neighborhood feedback and hopefully make people more willing to bring their issues to the city council on a regular basis. It will also allow city staff and aldermen to visit all neighborhoods in our city. I am also planning to add a substation or staging area in the east end, not just for police, but inspectors or other city workers doing projects in that section of town and to serve as a neighborhood community center for meetings and events. This will foster more community engagement and improve awareness.

4. What personal experiences have prepared you for office?

I bring a unique blend of business and public-sector experience to the office. I have been a small business owner, and I am used to supervising a large organization. As a District Manager with Steak ‘n Shake, I managed 10 units with over 400 employees, 30 managers and over $20 million in sales. I was responsible for all aspects of the business; labor relations, cost controls, marketing, vendor relations and, most importantly, guest service. We need to remember the citizens of Danville are our customers. In the public sector, I am an elected alderman and also serve as chairman of the Public Services Committee. This committee provides oversight for police, fire, human resources, human relations and finance. This has prepared me to understand and manage the wide range of functions that are involved in city operations. I have also been active in civic organizations and am currently vice -president of the Vermilion Heritage Foundation, which is overseeing the rapidly progressing Fischer Theater renovation project thanks to the generous support of Julius W. Hegeler II. I am a Danville native, and I have lived in every ward in the city during my life which allows me to better understand the challenges of all of our citizens. I believe that this combination of experiences has prepared me to be Mayor of the City of Danville.

5. How would you help improve the relationship between the police and the community (particularly minority groups in the community)?

We must work with the various neighborhood and citizen groups to bridge what I will call the trust gap. It is easy for people not directly involved to use phrases such as “see something , say something,” and it’s another for those living in these high crime areas who must worry about retaliation and the safety of their families to come forward with information about criminal activity. We must work more closely with the County officeholders, particularly the Sheriff and State’s Attorney to assure those who report criminal activity that there will be action taken and they will be provided some measure of protection if they testify. We should establish a substation in the east side not just for police, but to provide staging areas for other city workers as well as a community center. When the city has a bigger footprint in high crime areas, the public will be more comfortable with coming forward with information and advice on how to effectively deal with the neighborhood crime issues.

6. How will you create community partnerships to engage the youth?

The main driver of the drug culture, and therefore the crime issue, is lack of hope among our young people. We must reverse this perception. There are numerous activities, especially in the summer, for youth in Danville. The problem is that these opportunities are not as readily accessible for many of the more at-risk youth in high crime neighborhoods. The Danville recreation department must do a better job of providing ways to help people without transportation to get to the various activities or to bring activities to them. We should look for grant programs through the bus system and work with agencies such as CRIS who have fleets of vehicles. DACC also has small buses and could be a partner to provide transportation services. We can work with the American Job Center to identify summer-work partnerships with businesses that could be offered with transportation provided to the recipients. I can tell you first hand from my work experience that lack of reliable, affordable transportation is a major barrier to those from low-income households. We currently have two young men from DHS working with us three hours a day from the DHS Step program. They are great workers, but I know that when school is out for the summer, they will struggle with transportation issues. Without the structure and income, these young men could become disillusioned and turn to far less productive ways to spend their summer.

7. What new ways can city resources be allocated to serve youth?

We mow many lots around the city during the summer. While there are barriers with union contracts and insurance, the city could provide jobs to youth with funds already being spent by the taxpayers. We should reach out to local business and civic organizations and look for ways to provide transportation to and from the job sites. We could offer internships in various city departments and provide transportation there as well. These would provide structure and training to those involved. We should incentivize city employees to become active in the recently announced roll out of Big Brothers- Big Sisters with allowed time off during the work day. This would include sitting down with all city unions, but especially police and fire, to get their buy-in and cooperation.

8. What ideas/plans do you have to address the violence in the community?

I am serious about taking the government out into the community. The establishment of a small neighborhood center in the eastern section of the city would be a start. The more activity that is conducted in an area, the less likely there will be criminal activity. We must convince the residents that we want to help them improve their neighborhoods. You must win hearts before you can win minds. Stepped-up law enforcement that is supported by neighborhood residents is the key to combating these societal issues. There should be one person employed by the city to act as a liaison between all city departments and the neighborhood and citizen groups across the city. That person should also act as a liaison with the county and township to coordinate joint efforts to not only fight crime but create opportunities to combat the feelings of hopelessness and desperation that drive the crime in the first place.

9. How will you use code enforcement to improve the condition and affordability of property in the community?

The easy answer is to go after the landlords with higher fines and high levels of scrutiny. While everyone deserves safe, affordable housing, taxing and fining the landlords out of business will only make a bad situation worse. While there are terrible landlords out there offering substandard living situations, I have been encouraged by the landlord association’s willingness to step up and be part of the solution to this very real problem. The sad fact is that with an aging population, we have many code problems in owner-occupied housing as well. We must find grant sources to assist those doing their best to maintain their own homes. On the business front, Danville has an unfortunately well-deserved reputation for not being friendly to business. Again, while no one wants unsafe conditions for workers or customers, adding to the already seemingly endless layers of red tape and bureaucracy is forcing business to locate or re-located outside of Danville. Our area is particularly vulnerable because the anti-business attitude generated by the State of Illinois may encourage a company to locate in the more business-friendly state of Indiana. In the short run, I will have the inspection department report directly to me. This will give me an opportunity to evaluate the entire inspection system.

10. How will you attract good jobs to the community?

The reality is that there are many high-paying, skilled and unskilled positions unfilled in the private sector in Danville. Many businesses have created their own apprenticeships and internship opportunities and partner with DACC and the American Job Center to provide needed skills. We must also market ourselves better. With the thriving arts community, great parks, reasonably priced housing and easy access to large population centers, Danville is an ideal place to raise a family. The application for the new $15 million mixed-income housing project gives us the opportunity to offer good housing opportunities to working families that make up a large segment of the population that is currently underserved. I love Danville and believe that with the right leadership, we can overcome our difficulties and make Danville a place we can all be proud to call home. I am up for the challenge and will hit the ground running.